Azerbaijan Has Lowest Public Budget Allocated to Judicial System

Baku/04.10.18/Turan: The European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) of the Council of Europe sets out the main trends observed in this field in 45 European countries (*) today in a report and a publicly accessible interactive database.

The trends identified by this 7th evaluation report since the CEPEJ was set up in 2002 include:

- in the sphere of judicial system budgets:

AZERBAIJAN

Budgets of judicial systems consist of (1) Courts budgets, (2) Legal aid and (3) Public prosecution services.

Azerbaijan had the lowest public budget allocated to judicial system per capita in 2016 (7.8 EUR) among all the countries surveyed. It is more than eight times lower than the average (64.5 EUR) and 28 times lower than the maximum indicator (Switzerland with 214.8 EUR per capita). Azerbaijan is closely followed by Ukraine (8.1 EUR per capita), Moldova (8.3 EUR), Armenia (8.4 EUR) and Georgia (9.7 EUR) - see Overview, pp. 6-8.

During the last evaluation in 2014, the judicial budget per capita was 16.4 EUR. However, Azerbaijan saw two big devaluations of the Manat of 95% in February and December 2015 that show big decreases in all budgets when analyzed in Euros - see Full report p.5.

Court fees and taxes in the budget: in Azerbaijan, court fees shaped 6% of the budget of the whole judicial system, as compared to 19% European average - see Overview p.9.

Implemented budget of legal aid per capita: Azerbaijan has the lowest budget of legal aid per capita (0.06 EUR) among the Council of Europe states, closely followed by Albania (0.07 EUR). The Azerbaijani indicator is more than 100 times lower than the European average of 6.96 EUR of legal aid budget per capita. Morocco, a non-member of the CoE, has demonstrated an even lower indicator of 0.004 EUR per capita - see Overview, pp. 11-12.

Azerbaijan is among the countries with the lowest number of professional judges per 100,000 inhabitants (5.2 judges), and this indicator has decreased over the past years. Only in Ireland and the UK (Scotland, England and Wales) the indicators were much lower, due to the fact that a very high proportion of cases in these countries is tried by non-professional judges. The average European indicator here is 21 judges per 100,000 population. There is no information on the number of non-professional judges in Azerbaijan - see Full report, pp. 103-106.

The average gross salaries of judges in Azerbaijan are high - just like in Armenia and Romania, for example. At the beginning of the career judges earn more than 4 times the average salary and at the end of their career, more than 6 times the average salary). Average European indicator of the end-career judge is 4,5 times the average salary in the country - see Overview p.19.

Azerbaijan had by far the lowest number of lawyers per 100,000 inhabitants: 9.5 per 100,000 inhabitants. It is 17 times lower than the European average of 162 lawyers - see Overview p.35-36.

Number of public prosecutors is 11 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2016 which is comparable to the average 12. - see Overview, p. 23.

Azerbaijan has by far the lowest percentage of females among professional judges (12%), followed by Armenia (25%), Scotland (27%) and England & Wales (34%) the Europe-wide average was 51% - see Full report, p.114;

Among public prosecutors, there are 5% of females (whereas the European average is 53%) and 15% of lawyers are females. No data has been provided for notaries and enforcement agents. -06D--